


Everything Good in the World

by skyenapped



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Angst, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 05:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyenapped/pseuds/skyenapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like this is the first kid who's changed Harvey; stopped him in his tracks, altered his perspective — got him thinking with his heart far more often than his head. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything Good in the World

**Author's Note:**

> Harvey and Mike move to Brooklyn and accidentally adopt a four year old. (I wrote this months ago on a whim, but honestly kind of forgot about it. So here it is. Unbeta'd because I'm lazy.)

 

**_November 12, 2016  
Present day_ **

****

_*_

Sometimes Mike can’t remember exactly why they moved to Brooklyn in the first place. Their brownstone is homier but not particularly bigger than Harvey’s condo was. It seems like in exchange for a slightly, but entirely unnecessary, more humanizing rent and a mildly quieter, more residential street, they acquired a thirty-minute commute and lost one hell of a view. Mornings – like this one – often consist of him standing barefoot in the kitchen, looking out their window at a pair of trash cans, wondering what the tradeoff had been. They’re smart, reasonable people: Mike knows their move was practical– he just forgets exactly why. It’s one of those things he can’t program into his mind the way he can books or cases or laws, like the way he’s always forgetting his phone or thinking he left the oven on. (On the latter, Harvey always tells him he didn’t because it makes Mike feel better, like his crazy brain isn’t making him incapable of remembering the most basic things because it’s so preoccupied with memorizing, well, _everything else._ Really, though, he had forgotten and Harvey had just laughed and turned the damn thing off before he left.)

He thinks it may have been in part because it was their first place together. It wasn't one or the other, it was _theirs._ But he can't help but feel there was more to it, that they moved because of an unspoken prediction that they'd need a  _home with a door_ and not a condo with an elevator, because it might not always be just the two of them. 

Mike is thirty now; the past five years a colorful blur in the back of his mind now, on most days. But if he thinks about it, the memories surge to the front of his brain, sharpen into focus, into perfect detail; hardly a week is missing, maybe not even a day, and certainly never an entire month. It’s all still there, neat, tucked away safely; ready to open up again on days like this.

He’s sipping coffee, and it’s Saturday, and the view out the window of their Brooklyn street is uneventful and it bores him quickly. He might be thirty, but his attention span is still narrow and mostly selective. It stretches for only certain things: Harvey, their son, work, and – occasionally – fantasy football. Anything else and three minutes in Mike is ready to move on.

Suddenly, five years of blur that he’s stashed away in favor of living in the present has shot forward; sharpens up like it does, like someone’s twisting a camera lens and then he can just _see it,_ right there, like he’s watching a movie at a brand new theatre.

He stops to watch, and his coffee goes cold.

 

* * *

 

 

**_February 21, 2014  
_ **

****

_*_

Mike’s not quite twenty-eight, never thought he’d be spending a Friday night in the lobby of an emergency room babysitting a four-year-old, but that’s where he is, and honestly, he’s not sure there’s anywhere else he was ever supposed to be.

He straightens up in his chair when he sees Harvey walking toward him – suit jacket flying open, steps purposeful, expression staid – and then stands up altogether.

Mike doesn’t ask, doesn’t need to. He sees the answer on Harvey’s face.

“Shit!” Mike shouts, loud, loud enough that Saige turns from where he was lingering innocently by a vending machine, pointing at candy, looks up at both of them; looks incredibly aware of the change in the room’s tone.

Mike looks helplessly down at him and then up at Harvey. He was so good with this kid. He _wanted_ this kid, and long before he knew the parents would be murder victim and murder suspect; back when all he knew was that Saige was the swing vote in a bitter, financially-fueled divorce-turned-custody-battle. But now – _now –_ Mike is lost. He can’t tell a four-year-old his mother is dead and his father’s going to prison; refuses to level his world that up until a moment ago revolved around nothing except Mike and an elusive candy bar.

Saige is still looking up at them, confused, wondering why everyone was fine and now everyone is sad, and Mike takes a deep breath and kneels in front of him. He briefly thinks about whether it’s even necessary to tell him. He’s not sure what the alternative would be and in the past, lying only got him in trouble, but still – _why?_

Saige is younger than Mike was when he lost his parents, but kneeling there, all Mike can hear are those words, and somehow it doesn’t seem any different – four, ten, twelve – a kid is a kid and he – he _remembers_ , and he _can’t._ His eyes well up at the memory, at the present, at the irony, at everything he feels for this kid, and he stands back up, faces Harvey, shakes his head viciously—

“I _can’t,”_ he says. “Harvey, I can’t.”

—And Harvey is rushing forward, like he knew Mike couldn’t, but wanted him to try, and he’s putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Mike,” is all he says, and Mike knows he’ll take care of it, so he steps back and watches Harvey walk by him.

“You want this?” Harvey asks. He’s pointing into the vending machine. Saige still looks confused, but he nods excitedly.

Harvey puts a dollar in the machine. Saige takes the candy bar and holds it up victoriously.

“Let’s take a walk, Saige,” Harvey says. He reaches for his little hand. “I wanna talk to you.”

“Okay,” Saige replies, agreeable like children are. He gives Mike a fleeting look before he walks off in blind optimism with Harvey.

It doesn’t take long for it all to go to hell.

Mike is standing there, wondering how the hell what began as a corporate case ended up a murder and not just why a kid got stuck in the middle of it but why it had to be _this kid,_ this particular kid, the one who’d ran into Harvey’s office on day one, the one that – amidst all of the random bullshit in Mike’s life – seemed to have ended up there on purpose. He just fucking wonders.

And when he hears screams, he stops.

Harvey is trying to hold onto him, but Saige is four and slippery and squirms his way out of his arms, blazing a fast path down the hallway, crying the whole way.

 _“Mommmm!”_ he’s shouting, but his words crack and falter. Harvey catches up with him, grabs him by the waist, scoops him up.

Mike watches, eyes watering all over again. Saige is sobbing against Harvey’s chest and Harvey is _shhhh_ ing against his head and it’s not doing a damn thing to help.

After the initial shock wears off, Mike rushes over, outstretches his arms.

“Give him to me,” he says, and Harvey raises an eyebrow, to check that Mike can handle it, and Mike nods, and he’s not offended; he’s glad someone gives a damn about him enough to ask. Harvey pries Saige off and hands him over, and just like that, he clings to Mike like he and Harvey are the same person; each equal parts lifeline.

Saige cries against Mike’s neck and all Mike can do is hold him and cry along with him.

He catches Harvey’s eye, and Harvey’s expression says two things:

That he loves Mike more than ever in this moment.

And that they’re keeping this kid.

 

* * *

 

*

 

**_January 9, 2014_ **

****

_*_

Harvey calls Mike a little after one o’clock on a Thursday.

“Are you out of class yet? I need you.”

“You always need me,” Mike teases, and Harvey doesn’t know he’s outside the office already.

“Don’t start. Listen, I’m up to my neck here with the Berghs.”

The Bergh case. It started as a merger in 2009: newlyweds who thought combining their respective companies and all of their assets and forgoing a pre-nup was a good idea. And Harvey knew it wasn’t, but it wasn’t his job to care if it all went to hell one day. All he had to do was close it, and he did. Then, four years later, the marriage crumbled, and both parties showed up at Pearson Hardman demanding they each get half of the companies’ assets.

Which, financially speaking, was easy to do. But it was more difficult to split a three-year-old in half, and by the time Harvey thought to send them to a custody lawyer, his hands were all over the case and Mike was spending an awful lot of time with the three-year-old when Harvey was busy refereeing the arguing parents in a boardroom down the hall.

He decided to finish what he started. He’s lived to regret it for a little while now.

“Yeah, so,” Mike says. He’s in the elevator now. “Nothing new under the sun, Harvey.”

“I’m in the middle of the Phipps case too,” Harvey sighs. “Donna’s out sick, that Harvard clone I hired after you left for school doesn’t know his ass from his elbows, Louis is on the Delta merger and can’t spare me a single associate. I think it’s because I made another wife joke, I don’t know. Mike, can you come in for a few hours?”

“I could,” Mike announces from the doorway of Harvey’s office. He smirks and hangs up his phone. “But I’m already here.”

“You know what? I don’t like when you do that.” Harvey says from his desk, but he smiles warmly.

Mike shrugs and grins back. “Where do you want me?”

“Follow me,” Harvey tells him, standing up and heading to the door. “Conference room. Bergh’s are waiting and I have one more settlement to offer them before I personally throw their asses out.”

“And I’m…?”

“You’re going to play interference. Distract them from what they’re not getting. Make them focus on what they _are_ getting. They need to know this is as good as it’s gonna get.”

 

*

 

The meeting with the Berghs is going almost as well as usual – which is terrible – and Harvey stops to put a finger on his temple as the couple start arguing again.

“I don’t know why we do this in the same room,” he mutters.

Mike leans close to Harvey and whispers, “Why do they bring Saige with them?”

Harvey shrugs and whispers back, “Leverage? I don’t know, Mike. Go get him.”

Saige is nearly tossed onto the floor while the showdown escalates and he looks nothing but relieved and _rescued_ when Mike picks him up and carries him away from the commotion.

 

*

 

By the time Harvey finds him, Mike is doing an impressive job of pretending not to be as upset as he really is over the fact that the Berghs keep dragging their son – literally – into the middle of their disputes.

He’s also somehow proofing the Phipps’ briefs while bouncing Saige up and down on his knee.

Harvey points, “You don’t have to do those.”

“You needed me, remember? Let me help,” Mike smiles and nods toward Saige, who’s looking up at Harvey in adoration. “Besides, I can multitask.”

“I see,” Harvey says, and he tries not to smile – he tries, he _tries –_ but, _shit,_ he smiles. Then his face goes suddenly sober and Mike gets nervous. “Listen, the Berghs are ready to go…”

“Did they bite?”

Harvey nods, but he still looks troubled. “Jessica talked them into signing it. We’re done.”

Mike shrugs and looks around, “So what’s the problem? That’s great, Harvey!”

Harvey looks at Saige and Mike follows his gaze.

They don’t say anything for a few minutes, just watch the three year old bouncing around, trying to take the cap off a highlighter.

“They’ve been playing tug of war with him for almost a year, Harvey,” Mike says, his voice very quiet.

“I know.”

“They don’t…they don’t even,” Mike whispers, swallows hard, bites his lip, shakes his head. He’s used to this; used to trying to hide how he feels because sometimes there’s just nothing you can do about things. “They don’t even _want_ him, Harvey. They’re using him as leverage, you said it yourself.”

Harvey doesn’t argue, knows Mike is right, wishes there was something, anything, he could do but honestly – _what?_ “I know,” is all he can repeat.

Suddenly, from the behind them, Vince Bergh flies down the hallway after his wife, shouting expletives, hurling threats in her direction, completely enraged, and Jessica isn’t far behind, looking across the room at Harvey like _these fucking people._ And to be honest, Harvey wouldn’t care less as long as they still have that signature. But Mike is sitting in front of him holding Saige, looking terrified, and maybe Harvey’s a little attached to the kid by now too, and even if he isn’t, when Mike hurts, he hurts.

There’s still not much he can do, though, and less still when Vince stops screaming and storms over, demanding his son.

 _“Give him to me!”_ he roars.

And Mike freezes, arms around Saige – who flinches at all of the yelling – and he’s not moving, not standing, not letting go, eyes wide, scared, angry, _stuck._ All that runs through his head are the past seven months, Saige and this bond he’s inadvertently created, and the Bergh’s volatile, hostile home environment that Mike can only imagine is far from conducive to raising a well-adjusted child, and then Vince Bergh’s history of domestic violence springs into view, clear as a bell, just the way Mike’s mind mentally photographed it the day Harvey had him run another background check on the man.

Vince stomps and reaches over the edge of the cubicle where Mike is sitting, and suddenly that’s just _too close_ to Mike for Harvey’s liking, and he shoves the man back.

“All right, back up!” he shouts. From not far away, someone is calling security and Jessica is trying to calm down a distraught but equally loud and unhelpful Mrs. Bergh.

Harvey turns to Mike, eyes apologetic but serious. “Mike…” he says softly, which is code for _I’m really sorry but we have to give these psychos their kid back._

Mike looks close to tears, but he stands up, because Harvey told him to, and because if Harvey can’t fix this then he certainly can’t, then _nobody_ can, then he has no other choice. But Saige is clinging to him tight, crying now from all of the threats and bad words he’s heard, and more than ever Mike’s stomach is twisting with nausea, with this horrible feeling that if he hands this kid over he’ll never see him again, that it might even been a death sentence, that he wouldn’t put anything past this man or his spite.

And after that feeling settles inside him, terrifies him, sickens him, he realizes he can’t be the one to physically hand Saige over. He can’t do it.

“Goddamn it, give him to me or I’ll call the police!” Vince surges forward, but instead of trying to pry Saige from Mike’s arms, he just grabs Mike’s wrist and yanks it, hard.

Something snaps in Harvey, some kind of feeling like the one he got when Vince so much as reached unsavorily over the cubicle in Mike’s direction, something protective, possessive, and he’s immediately, reflexively putting himself between the men, putting his hand on Vince’s chest and shoving him backwards even harder than before. He takes a few steps, keeping his back to Mike and Saige like a human shield. “You don’t _touch_ him, you got it?!”

“He’s _my_ son!” Vince screams, and advances again.

“I’m not talking about your son!” Harvey roars, and shoves him back again for good measure. Vince stares at Harvey’s hand in disbelief but doesn’t retaliate. “I’m talking about Mike. You touch him and _I_ call the police. And then I tear up that settlement and you walk out of here in _cuffs_ with _zero assets._ You want that?”

Everyone is staring and Louis has appeared to threaten them all into returning to work, but even he can’t take his eyes off the situation as it unfolds.

Vince makes a disapproving hiss and shakes his head, but he doesn’t go near Mike again.

“Almost three and a half years we’ve been working together, Harvey, and you’re gonna give me an ultimatum like that?”

“No, no,” Harvey shakes his head, points his finger. “We don’t work _together,_ Vince. I _worked for_ you. Past tense. We settled. And I’m not giving you an ultimatum. I’m telling you what’s gonna happen if you don’t calm the hell down.”

“You’re threatening me!” Vince persists.

“I’m surprised someone like you can’t tell the difference between a threat and what I’m doing.”

Vince throws up his hand angrily, “What the hell _are_ you d—”

And before he can even get the sentence out in its entirety, Harvey is interrupting with a loud, firm, _“Protecting my own.”_

And suddenly everyone shuts up for a few seconds.

Security finally shows up to drag Vince to the exits. Jessica has convinced Mrs. Bergh into an office to discuss whether or not getting another TRO might be a good idea at this point.

Back near the cubicles, Harvey is ushering Mike away from curious stares and into a mostly desolate office space.

“Hey,” he says softly, reaching out to tilt Mike’s chin up with his fingers.

When Mike looks up, his eyes are glassy, almost watering, and Harvey understands why his head’s been down in the first place for the past several minutes. Saige is still holding on to him, little arms wrapped around Mike’s neck, face burrowed into his shoulder like if he just doesn’t _see_ his parents going bat shit crazy, maybe when he finally looks up, none of it will have actually happened.

“I’m sorry,” Mike says. “I just—”

Harvey nods, “I know.” He gives Mike another minute, just standing there, just the two of them, and Saige, and silence, and an unfortunate, formidable, fast-approaching deadline looming ahead. Mike feels like he has everything he needs in life in this moment, except the luxury of time.

“I can’t, Harvey,” Mike tells him honestly, shrugging, and wincing like this whole crisis of conscience is _physically_ painful. “You do it.”

Harvey’s only fooling himself – and maybe Mike, but only a little – when he reaches out and pulls Saige into his own arms. Only fooling himself that this won’t hurt him almost just as much as it’s hurting Mike, if in fact it might even hurt Harvey _more_ because he isn’t just walking out the door and giving Saige back but he’s hurting Mike by doing it. But that’s the thing about love, Harvey realizes: it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it hurts him, if it hurts him even _more,_ because he’s hurting for all three of them – for Mike, mostly, for Saige, and for himself – because it’s better than watching Mike become any more devastated. Harvey figures if he can spare him even an iota of pain, then it’ll be worth it.

 

*

 

Harvey’s halfway down the hall when Saige finally stops asking why they’ve left Mike and starts asking where they’re going.

“To mom,” Harvey says, as positive and as bright as he can possibly force himself to sound, for the kid’s sake, given the recent events.

Saige stiffens, “I wanna stay with you,” he says, in his young, three-year-old voice, and he’s so serious and certain and almost _desperate_ that Harvey nearly chokes on his tongue.

Harvey, for the record, is awful with kids. Like, terrible. Mike’s pointed this out on several occasions over the past seven months. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t give it a valiant effort or that he isn’t almost as attached to Saige as Mike. It just means he has no idea what he’s supposed to tell a three year old who doesn’t want to go back to his mother and is probably very justified in his desire to stay. Harvey’s pretty sure Pearson-Hardman is the only place this kid’s felt safe over those past seven months, and now that the settlement is final, there won’t be any more instances of Pearson-Hardman reprieve on the horizon.

“You don’t wanna go see mommy?”

Harvey’s awful with kids, but he tries.

“No,” Saige’s voice is stubborn, his face transforms into an adorable pout, and it reminds Harvey of someone immediately. He’s overcome with an urge to turn around, but he’s too rational for that, instead just slows his steps.

“Why not?”

“Scared,” Saige says, and he’s looking right at Harvey now, and _shit._ Normally the words of a three year old wouldn’t hold much weight but since Harvey _knows_ he’s telling the truth, it’s all that much worse.

“What about your dad?”

Saige looks suddenly like he might cry, so Harvey stops short of the office door where Jessica is with Mrs. Bergh. Saige stabs Harvey’s chest with his little finger and says, distressed, _“No, no, no,no!”_

“Okay, okay, _sshhh_ ,” Harvey says, and he knows – he _knows –_ he’s going to regret this, but he adds, “Who do you _want_ to go with?”

And he does regret it. He does, because he can’t _do_ that. He can’t give a three year old the opportunity to tell him what he wants when it’s not what he’s going to get; can’t give a three year old a choice in something when he doesn’t actually have one.

But it’s too late. The question is out there, on the air, and Saige has heard it.

“You,” he says, and pokes at Harvey’s chest again. “Mike!”

He breathes out slowly, not exactly sure when Saige Bergh intercepted him. Then again, it's not like this is the first kid who's changed Harvey; stopped him in his tracks, altered his perspective — got him thinking with his heart far more often than his head. 

*

 

When he finally convinces himself into the office, Mrs. Bergh all but snatches Saige from Harvey’s arms, and Saige cries and is frantically combative and Harvey gives her a death glare until Jessica says his name, to calm him, like she does, and then his death glare turns into a stony, staid look of repressed disapproval.

He shakes his head, turns and leaves, swallowing down emotion as he has to ignore Saige’s crying and young, confused, displaced yelps of _‘Harveeey! Miiiike!’_

The walk back to Mike is the longest walk of his life

 

*

 

Mike is a reasonable person. Twenty-seven, Pearson-Hardman intern, law student, ex-fake lawyer, pretty much a legal superhero. _Reasonable._ He understands that they had to hand Saige over to his parents, but it doesn’t mean he’s okay with it and it doesn’t mean that after he wakes up and goes to school and goes to work, that he doesn’t come home and curl up in bed and look despondently at the wall because sometimes life is really fucking cruel and really fucking unfair.

Because Harvey is Harvey and because he knows Mike – better than anyone – he already knows all of this, and he knows how to respond to it. He still doesn’t have a solution, but he tries, and in the interim, he presses himself against Mike and wraps his arms around him protectively and kisses his hair.

“We could call CPS,” he suggests, and he tightens his hold around Mike’s chest like someone might try to take _him_ away. “If you want.”

Mike scoffs. He’s quiet for a few seconds and then says, “He’d get thrown into the system.”

Harvey shrugs against him. “Maybe that would be better.”

“No,” Mike laughs dryly; bitter, wounded. “The system isn’t better than anything. I don’t know. Maybe it is. Harvey, _I don’t know.”_

“Maybe,” Harvey says, and he’s lacing his fingers against the front of Mike’s chest, and Mike is leisurely unlacing them and looking down, slightly mesmerized, at how quickly they go right back – like some kind of automatic seatbelt. “We could try…to…get him out of the system.”

Mike stills, and then rolls over, forcing Harvey to slide back to give him room. “What? Seriously?”

Harvey shrugs, he’s not sure why he said it, can’t really believe he _did_ say it, but it sounds…right.

“Except I’m sure they’d try to get him back, Mike, which would put him in limbo for who knows how long – court dates, custody hearings – it could take months, years even. That’s assuming they even took him in the first place. Now, I know they’re shitty parents but I’m sure CPS has seen worse. I’m not convinced they’d prioritize him.”

“I think it’s worse than it looks,” Mike says. “And it looks pretty bad.”

Harvey nods in agreement. He kisses Mike’s forehead and sighs, “I’ll figure something out, I promise.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I’ll threaten them, follow them – whatever it takes to make sure he’s okay.”

“That’s ridiculous, Harvey. You can’t follow them around forever.”

“Of course I can. I’ll do it.”

Mike swats his chest playfully, “I _know_ you will, that’s why I’m saying you can’t!”

“All right,” Harvey sighs. “Fine. I won’t do that. But I’ll think of something. I’ll figure it out, I promise. Okay?”

When Harvey promises Mike something, he always follows through, without fail. So Mike feels immediately better – not wholly, of course, but significantly – and he’s able to relax. There’s this sort of hope that fills him up, this idea that things will be okay because _Harvey is going to make them okay._ Which is nearly as good as things never being wrong to begin with.

“Okay,” he breathes.

“Good,” Harvey says, and he grabs Mike’s shoulders and gently hauls him on top of him. “In the meantime, I think someone around here has an exam tomorrow.”

“Two, actually,” Mike corrects.

“So,” Harvey continues. “I don’t want you to worry about anything else except that between now and then. Got it?”

“But, I never worry about exams, Harvey,” Mike frowns and points to his head.

“I know,” Harvey says. “It was funny because I already knew that.”

“No, it was a stupid joke,” Mike replies, but he laughs.

Harvey reaches across the bed and turns off the light. Mike shifts to move off of him and Harvey stops him.

“No,” he mumbles. His eyes are already closed.

“No what?” Mike asks, freezing.

“Don’t move. Just sleep here,” Harvey pats his chest and nudges Mike’s head onto it with his fingers.

“On you? Just sleep on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Harvey, I’m—how are you going to breathe?”

“Easily. You weigh like a hundred pounds.”

“Actually, I’m—”

Harvey knows Mike can’t see his face in the dark, but he smiles anyway. “Shut up, Mike. I just like it. Go to sleep.”

Mike nuzzles against his neck and then settles his head on Harvey’s chest just below his chin. Harvey runs his fingers through his hair repeatedly, soothingly, until Mike’s breathing slow and heavy and content, and Harvey just lies there wracking his mind for a way to keep his promise – because there’s no way he’s letting either of these kids down.

 

* * *

  

**_December 9, 2013_ **

****

_*_

It’s cold outside in Manhattan because it’s winter. It’s cold inside Pearson Hardman for other reasons.

The Bergh case is getting uglier and uglier.

 “This is getting ugly,” Harvey announces, waltzing in to his office. Mike is, of course, pointing out the windows at various buildings and lights and Saige is on his hip and either in awe or bored out of his skull.

“I know,” Mike says.

“Jackie wants a restraining order, Vince keeps threatening to kill her,” Harvey shakes his head, sighs exasperatedly. He thinks Mr. and Mrs. Bergh weren’t worth the sixteen million dollar merger; not worth the trouble and stress and chaos they’re causing now. It’s pushing eight-thirty and if not for their inability to come to a civil agreement on who-gets-what and who keeps their son on Saturdays, Harvey would already be home by now, one scotch in, TV on low, looking over the Phipps case – far more lucrative, actually, with less liability – and Mike would be asleep with his head on his chest and all would be right with the world.

“I know that too,” Mike whispers, pointing out the door, “We could hear them all the way in here.” He cradles his hand over Saige’s ear; presses the other to his chest. “Now, please, Harvey. He can hear you.”

“He’s _three_ , Mike,” Harvey shakes his head. He would roll his eyes, but frankly the situation is too adorable even for him: Mike’s standing there holding a miniature version of himself and somehow Harvey is finding it really difficult to keep thinking about work while white picket fences keep popping into his head.

“So?” Mike bounces Saige up and down once and whispers exaggeratedly. “Three year olds can hear. They know what ‘kill’ means! Do you know _nothing_ about kids?”

“Less than nothing,” Harvey clarifies, smiling. And then, “Listen, tomorrow? I need you to make sure they grant this TRO. These are empty threats, I’m sure, but let’s cross our T’s.”

“Got it,” Mike nods. “Where are you going?”

Harvey turns around at the door, “I’m going to make sure they haven’t broken anything else in Jessica’s office. Then, we’re going home.”

“Okay, but…” Mike says, before he can leave. His tone piques Harvey’s interest immediately. It’s that tone he uses when he’s done something and he probably should’ve asked permission first, but he knew he’d get a ‘no,’ so he just winged it, and now he’s standing there hoping he can get out of trouble just on his looks, and, of course, because Harvey loves him.

“But…?”

“Okay, he might be coming with us.”

“He?”

Mike nods subtly down at Saige, who’s resting his head against him. He’s blonde, blue-eyed, cooperative, brilliant, quiet, good-natured – hell, Mike is pretty sure he never liked kids before this one. Didn’t dislike them either, but this one – he _loves_ this one.

“Mike—”

“It’s just one night, Harvey, I promised. I promised we’d take him because they’re going to be up all night going over the offer and honestly, if they’re threatening each other, do we really want him around them?”

Harvey raises an eyebrow, “We?”

Mike sighs, “Harvey, we live in Brooklyn! You won’t even know he’s there, I swear.”

“Yeah? How will I not know there’s a three-year-old in my house, Mike? Where do you plan on having him sleep?”

Mike’s quiet for a second and then squeaks, “Um…between…between us…I guess?”

Harvey shakes his head, just stares for a moment, very vague smile on his face, and then, suddenly, it hits him. “Wait a minute,” he says, striding across the room.

Mike backs up and tries not to look guilty.

“They didn’t ask you. You _offered.”_

“No, they said—”

Harvey tilts his head and Mike caves.

“OkaymaybeIofferedsorry?”

"Fine," Harvey sighs, after a few seconds. Mostly because he loves him; because Mike can get away with anything and partly because Harvey still gets a little proud/impressed whenever he pulls a fast one like he did – he likes to think he taught him that.

He leans in and kisses Mike, and then pulls away and frowns, pointing as he backs toward the door. “But only because…you’re…you know.”

Mike just smiles, wide and victorious, and watches him go.

 

* * *

 

 

**_September 20, 2013_ **

****

_*_

“You know, I’m not an associate. I don’t really get why I have to stay at the office until almost seven.”

Mike falls into bed with a sigh.

Harvey shrugs, nonchalant, “Well, see, you’re an intern. That’s _beneath_ an associate.”

“I know,” Mike whines. He slides under the blankets and snuggles up to Harvey’s chest. “But I already climbed the ranks. I have to do it all over again?”

“Yup.”

Mike huffs and Harvey laughs.

“Hey,” he says, running his fingers through Mike’s hair. “That’s the deal we made when you agreed to go to law school for real. When you _graduate,_ I’ll see about a promotion.”

“You _made_ me go to law school. I didn’t need to. I could _teach_ at a law school. I could teach _the whole_ law school.”

“You didn’t want to end up like Stan Jacobson, remember? Besides, I know you’re too smart for law school. But just think of it as a minor inconvenience, you know, like going to Miami to get to Atlanta.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Mike laughs and rubs his face against Harvey’s chest, like he often does when he’s tired. Between classes and work – which he doesn’t _have_ to go to until he graduates, but he does, because he loves it, and because it’s a way to see Harvey before the day is over – he’s exhausted.

The TV is on, but it’s quiet, and then goes silent when Harvey switches it off.

“Hey, Mike,” he says, nudging him up.

Mike looks at him.

“This Bergh kid…”

“Saige?”

“Yeah,” Harvey confirms. He knows the kid’s name. He figures using it will defeat the point of the conversation. “You’ve…you spend a lot of time with him. At the office.”

“You hand him off to me when the Bergh’s fight,” Mike answers quickly – very quickly, _suspiciously_ quickly, like he was expecting Harvey’s observation before it ever came.

“It just seems like you’re a little…emotionally attached.”

“You’re not?” Mike asks.

Harvey shakes his head, “No. I mean, I am. A little. But I just don’t want you to – look, Mike, we’re gonna figure this out, we’re gonna figure out something to make them both _civil_ and then send them to someone who’ll split the custody fifty-fifty, and then, hopefully, we never see these two again, ever, and I—”

“You don’t want me to be attached to the kid and then get upset when he has to go back to his really shitty parents?” Mike finishes, dejected. “I know, Harvey.”

“He’s not _ours_ , Mike,” Harvey reminds him, in that tone, the one that implies Mike’s trying too hard to fight a battle he can’t win. There’s not much Harvey’s content with losing, but even he has to play devil’s advocate now and then.  

Mike sighs, burrows his head against Harvey’s neck. “I know that too.”

“I had to check,” Harvey says, and he cranes his neck to kiss Mike’s forehead. “Because I love you, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

 

* * *

 

 

**_July 16, 2013_ **

****

_*_

They’ve been going back and forth with the Bergh’s for four weeks and three days.

Harvey and Mike and Louis and Jessica have all tried to put together a settlement to please them both, but so far, no dice. Then they bring Saige into it and, well, that’s just not Harvey’s specialty.

They start going at each other’s throats – verbally – in the conference room, and it escalates into shouting and then Harvey is picking Saige up off the floor, handing him to Mike, getting them both out of the crosshairs.

“Take the kid,” Harvey’s saying, and Mike does. “Take him out. Go.”

 Mike disappears. Harvey turns back to the chaos.

“Everyone shut the hell up!” he yells.

 

*

 

Mike is sitting in his cubicle when Harvey finds him later. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t need to.

“That go any better after I left?”

“Not even a little,” Harvey says. Mike is playing some version of pattycakes with the kid, who’s perched on the edge of the desk, and for a brief moment, Harvey is transfixed by the scene.

“They’re not happy with the settlement,” he continues. “They’re back to the custody thing now. I came to get the kid.”

Mike scoops Saige up almost instantly, which Harvey snapshots and files away – out of both affinity and suspicion.

“I’ll take him,” Mike says.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_November 12, 2016  
Present day_ **

****

_*_

****

Mike blinks.

He pours the rest of his coffee down the sink and in the background he hears things: the hum of the TV, that soothing medium of knowing there are people’s voices coming from it but not being under the obligation to listen since it’s all just a few volumes too low to be audible. Then there’s a familiar voice cutting in, overriding the sound of a news anchor, and it’s low, kind, warm. Mike feels instantly safe. Not that he didn’t before, but now more so than ever; protected, guarded – an army of one on his side. Or one and a half, as the case may be, because he hears another voice fading in, and it’s young, innocent, happy, loved.

He thinks he might wait there, for a few more minutes, anticipate the rush of little feet on the floor that he knows will come running, the little arms that will grab him tight around his leg, the playful shrieks that will accompany it all, and the heavier footsteps that will follow, the low, kind, warm laugh he knows he’ll hear, the strong arms that will wind around his waist and pull him back against the only solid ground he’s ever known.

It’ll all happen, if he waits a little longer. But he’s been standing here in the kitchen for ten whole minutes. He can’t last another.

He’s in the living room before he can even make the conscious decision to walk there. He looks around. Saige is six now, dragging four Crayola’s across the beige carpet and it doesn’t occur to either of them to stop him. Carpet is just carpet; they’d be more inclined, Mike bets, to join him.

“You’re just in time.” Harvey doesn’t look up, doesn’t need to. “I was about to start tickling him. He would’ve run to you.”

“I know,” Mike smiles.

“And I would’ve chased him.”

“I know.”

Harvey laughs and finally looks up, frowning. “What’s with your face?”

“What do you mean?” Mike asks. “You love my face.”

“I do,” Harvey nods, then points. “But it’s all weird, like when you think too much.”

Mike makes a dismissive hand gesture, crosses the room to sit beside him. “I just forgot something,” he says.

“And?”

Mike looks at Harvey, at Saige, back at Harvey, and shrugs. “And now I remember.”

 

*


End file.
